Konstantine Georgiades – 50th Reunion Essay

Konstantine Georgiades

27 Earthsong Terrace

New Ringgold, PA 17960

kosta@nni.net

570-386-5435

Spouse(s): Susan (1980-89); RoseAnne (1991-present)

Child(ren): Melissa (1980); Elia (1982)

Education: Yale BA 1969

Career: Marketing, Organizational Development, Executive Training

Avocations: Mercedes Benz restorations, tennis, cannabis

College: Davenport

Living with my wife RoseAnne for nearly 30 years on our 20-acre Earthsong Terrace, currently without pets except for eight chickens, multiple groundhogs and countless birds. Self-employed my entire career as organizational change agent, mortgage banker, mortgage originator, restorer of old Mercedes Benz autos, and motorcycling enthusiast. Two wives, three children, blessed with great family and great friendships, some since Yale. I’ve lived comfortably on both $250K and $35K a year with no loss of enthusiasm. We’ve always had enough and have wanted for nothing. I increasingly believe that the truly rich man is he who can do without the most things.

I’ve been a spiritual and religious traveler for the last 25 years in this mini natural paradise, a far cry from consulting for big banks, with apartments in San Diego and NYC and a family in Philadelphia. I am content to be, in perfect equanimity with the evolving themes in my life. Yale opened many doors in a house that I didn’t know existed. I am enriched and very grateful to have attended with such a great and varied group of classmates that I did not fully appreciate at the time. My two best, lifelong friends (and adopted family members) are a couple I first met and loved while at Yale. Fifty-two years of love and affection—how great is that!

My opening into the world of the spirit, my relationship with my eternal self, began my freshman year at Yale. I have been of two minds since then: on the one hand the Kosta/Elia identity that has evolved over the years with all my physical wants, needs, judgments, expectations and desires in the present. Living out the “this is how things are supposed to be” to be happy.

On the other, my eternal spirit-self connected to the consciousness of the One, living in a space of acceptance, love, tolerance and constant awareness of the spirit’s growth beyond fear, beyond ownership, beyond judgment and into the ever-growing presence of love that is the ONE. I am evolving, growing in my capacity to love unconditionally, especially those who are unlovable. I’ve learned that I have to suspend judgment to surrender to love. I’m still learning and practicing, with my wife, my children, other family members, with some of my fellow citizens over their choices. I’m still in training.

I also have a few regrets, mostly about missed opportunities to demonstrate my love and appreciation to those who have passed on. My father, my friend and mentor Jim, my sister Martha. I have seen them and communicated with them, after their deaths, so I don’t feel separated, but I wish I had expressed more love and affection while they lived, while we were in material form. And I regret all the times I was so stuck in my identity that I was an asshole and did asshole things. If I did that to you, I apologize. Please forgive me.

My greatest regret is that I haven’t yet made a significant contribution to our community, our country, our world. I have not yet fulfilled Horace Mann’s admonition to “be ashamed to die till you’ve won some small victory for humanity,” so I’m looking for some small victory. Anybody else feel that way? If so, contact me and let’s explore. As a gun owner, I wouldn’t mind taking the fangs out of the NRA and restoring it to its original mission from 1871. Or, let’s bring back the real Christian values of loving one another and being our brother’s keepers, not attacking those who are different. Or… what small victory do you want to win?